


Orphaned

by ForensicSpider98



Series: Love After the Fact [41]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alien Biology, Alien Cultural Differences, All this stress is bad for the baby, Altean Adam (Voltron), Altean Prince Lance (Voltron), Alternate Universe - Arranged Marriage, Alternate Universe - Royalty, Aromantic Asexual Pidge | Katie Holt, Balmeran Hunk (Voltron), Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/F, F/M, Galra Shiro (Voltron), Galran Prince Keith (Voltron), Gen, Gender-Neutral Pronouns for Pidge | Katie Holt, M/M, Moral Ambiguity, Moral Dilemmas, Multi, Nonbinary Pidge | Katie Holt, Olkari Pidge | Katie Holt, Post-War, it's keith. keith is the baby
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-24
Updated: 2020-05-24
Packaged: 2021-03-03 09:49:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,713
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24349030
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ForensicSpider98/pseuds/ForensicSpider98
Summary: So... I'm sorry.Trigger Warnings:-Death-Keith, SufferingTM
Relationships: Adam/Shiro (Voltron), Alfor/Coran (Voltron), Allura/Lotor/Romelle (Voltron), Haggar/Zarkon (Voltron), Hunk & Pidge | Katie Holt, Keith/Lance (Voltron)
Series: Love After the Fact [41]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1635043
Comments: 57
Kudos: 181





	Orphaned

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry for the wait! My summer classes just started and they are INTENSE. I probably won't be able to get as many episodes out for the next six weeks or so, but I won't leave you high and dry for more than a week or two without warning <3<3<3

While Coran inspects everyone for injuries, including Alfor, Lance keeps an eye on Keith. Long, thick, black lashes flutter against sharp cheekbones. He’s dreaming.

Lance hopes he’s somewhere safe and warm.

… 

It's a warm day. The bottle-green primate on Keith’s shoulder chitters appreciatively as he hands it half of a large tree-hopper. Settling onto the leaf-strewn sand, he pats his primate with his little hands. The primate pats him back, chittering. Her little baby peeks out of his pouch, wraps his long hands around Keith’s finger. The small kit smiles. He loves his pets.

“Hey, kitten.” Akira returns from the hunt, a vakalt slung over his back. “How’s your hunt going?”

“Dad!” Keith jumps up, puts his pets on his back. TreeTrunks works her fingers into his hair, her toes into his tunic. “Good! Caught bugs!”

“I bet you did.” Akira leans down, scoops up his young, his only kit. “Did you share with TreeTrunks and BleepBloop?”

“Mhm. TreeTrunks does pats now, but BleepBloop doesn’t. He gives squeezes, though.”

“So… If you ate lots of bugs, does that mean you don’t want any vakalt?” The pout on his little son's face has Akira biting back a laugh. He has his mother's sass.

Keith peers over his sire’s shoulder at the fanged, double-jointed tree dweller. Its coat is marbled greens and browns, reds and purples, blending in perfectly with the forest. Eyes wide with awe, Keith reaches out to pet the fur. “Pretty. It’s so soft!”

“Yeah? You can have the fur, if you want.”

“Really?” Keith gasps. “I can have it?”

“Sure.” Akira rubs their cheeks together. “It’ll be nice and warm for you, huh?”

“Mhm.” Keith rests his head on his father’s shoulder, wraps his tail around his arm. He starts playing with Akira's long braid. “We had fun today.”

“Yeah?” Relief washes through Akira. It's the first time he left his kit alone to hunt. It's time, but Keith is so small, causing his father extra worry.

“Mhm. BleepBloop almost caught a bug, but he missed.”

“Aw, well I bet he’ll get it next time. He’s still little. In a little bit, he’ll be as good of a bug hunter as you are!”

“Yes! Me and TreeTrunks are gonna teach him all our moves!”

"I know you will, kitten." Akira sets his boy and the primates down in front of their den, ruffles his mop of inky hair. As much as he misses and worries about his mate, he adores his young son. He’d do anything for this little guy. 

The little guy in question plays in the windchimes, young enough to be content with simple amusements. Akira worries how he’ll stimulate the boy as he gets older. Krolia was always the smart one, and Keith takes after his mother in myriad ways.

Krolia. The last time she saw their kit, they’d still referred to him in neutral terms. She doesn’t know their child is a boy. She doesn’t know that he’s struggling to grow, way behind despite Akira’s every effort. She doesn’t know that he cries during his growth spurts, that he sobs that his bones hurt, that Akira never feels so helpless as he does then. She doesn’t know how wonderful their kit is, either. Curious. Clever. Talented. More than a little sassy when he’s in the mood to be. But more than anything, he’s just sweet. And he looks almost exactly like her.

It makes Akira miss her a little more and a little less.

Akira cleans and skins the vakalt, saving the organs to use for fertilizer, the intestines for thread, the fat for greasing, waterproofing, burning for light. He’ll dry out the stomach and bladder to use for carrying herbs and other gathered items. He’ll clear out the horns for water, or to fill with burning oil from the village a few varga’s ride from here. The bones will be for soup, maybe an awl, something for his kit to teethe on, tie together, play with.

Keith hums, draws his pictures, tries to teach BleepBloop how to draw. The baby primate lacks his dexterity, but tries for the kit with the help of his mother. He can hear his father cutting the vakalt into pieces. 

A rustling sound has Keith pausing in his scribbling, last wobbly glyph of BleepBloop’s name unfinished in the sand. He peers into the trees, fluffy, little ears twisting this way and that, trying to catch another sound. He creeps over on his hands and toes, sniffs the foliage at the edge of their clearing.

“What are you doing, kitten?”

“Heard something.”

“Come over here." When the kit continues his inspection, Akira tacks on, "Now.”

The forest is not a safe place.

Keith does so, albeit with a huff, standing behind his tall father’s legs, fingers curled into Akira’s pants, tail around his ankles. Sniffing the air for himself, Akira nudges his son with his own tail. “Get inside.”

“Daddy?” Having to go inside is Keith's cue to be scared.

“Go on, kitten.”

Keith creeps hesitantly toward the den, slips behind the curtain. A few doboshes later, a group of small, hairless people step out of the brush. As Keith watches, their skin turns from mottled greens and reds to anything from pale white to near black. They have patches of color on their cheeks. He knows what they are, though he’s never seen one before.

Alteans.

Keith slips into the pile of furs even though it’s stuffy and warm. With his sire present, his instinct is to remain silent, to hide himself as best he can. He hunkers down into the furs to wait for his father to come get him.

Instead, he hears a shout, metal on metal like when Akira fixes tools, only different. He curls up tight in a ball, tail clasped in his hands. The ruckus only lasts a few minutes, followed by shouts, shots fired. The noise fades into the distance.

He waits.

And waits.

And waits.

The air grows cool before he hears anything more. Then, footsteps. A voice.

“What about the kit? I saw it. Scrawny, tiny little thing.”

“Don’t worry about it,” another voice says. “It’ll starve on its own. Too young to hunt. Only two or three.”

Keith scowls. He’s not that small! _And_ he's _six_ , morons!

“Come on.” Yet another voice. “Let’s go before the little thing comes back asking where it’s dad is.”

Keith spends the night curled up in the furs, warm despite the cold. He doesn’t sleep. He can’t. His sire is missing, and he has no littermates to keep him safe. When morning comes again, and there’s no sign of danger, he chooses to go find his father.

The earth is all churned up. Their oven has been toppled. Against one tree, he spots TreeTrunks, fur all bloodied.

“TreeTrunks?” Keith nudges his pet. She’s cold to the touch. The little kit starts to sniffle. Primarily carnivorous, he’s familiar with death, but not familiar with loss. “TreeTrunks!”

She is very dead. But at his insistent nudging, Keith finds movement. BleepBloop crawls out of his deceased mother’s pouch, chittering. Sniffling, ears drooped, Keith rubs at his eyes. He lifts the barely weaned baby into his arms, cradles him close.

“BleepBloop,” he sniffles. “C- Come on, BleepBloop. We gotta- We gotta find Dad.”

The small kit cradles BleepBloop to his chest, the baby primate’s little fingers not quite strong enough to hold himself there on his own for long.

Sniffling, Keith creeps along the edge of the torn up earth, finds his father’s scent intermingled with the strange Altean ones trailing off into the thick of the forest. Keith follows the scent, stopping to catch an insect for BleepBloop. The primate doesn’t eat, but the kit doesn’t blame him. He doesn’t feel like eating either. He lets the insect fly away.

Akira’s scent draws him deeper and deeper into the woods, and Keith is scared. He’s never been on his own for this long, or this far away from the den where he was born. What if he gets lost?

BleepBloop’s screech alerts Keith right before he stumbles over the edge of a ravine. At the bottom, half-submerged in a creek, is a dark form amidst a few other forms.

“Dad!” Keith crouches at the edge of the ravine, tiny fingers curling into the ledge. “Daddy!”

Not a move. Not a peep. Keith cradles BleepBloop close, takes a deep breath.

On his short, little legs, Keith starts working his way down the ravine, keeping one hand on BleepBloop, another on the stony wall. His little chest heaves, breath coming in pants as he makes his way down the narrow path.

His footing slips, and he falls with a shriek. BleepBloop falls, earning a sob from Keith. He reaches out, catches the baby primate in his hands. Shaking, the little kit holds his pet close, sniffles. He just wants his father.

“It's okay, BleepBloop. I'm sorry. We'll be okay. We’re almost there.”

BleepBloop clings to his tiny fingers as Keith stumbles the rest of the way down the rock face. When he finally reaches the bottom, he runs for his sire, tripping over the body of an Altean. He stares into the face of his enemy, the one he inherited from his ancestor.

He wants his father.

“Daddy!” Keith shakes the supine form of his father. He already knows it’s useless. “Please?” he whimpers. Akira, of course, does not move, braid trailing in the water. The little kit tucks his knees to his chest, tail wrapped around his legs, ears drooped.

Keith chirps, once, twice, thrice, on and on until the sun goes down. BleepBloop is still in his hands and it’s getting cold. Instincts kicking in, Keith scurries to the rock face, pulls some of the edging greenery into a small nest, drags more on top of himself. His primate companion curls up in his hands.

He waits for quintants, chirping, but no one comes for him. Eventually, he and BleepBloop make their way back up the ravine wall and back to the den. They leave the corpses of the Alteans to rot in the sun.

Akira is covered in a layer of stones, something to be preserved. Something to come back to when the world gets scary and lonely.

**Author's Note:**

> Next time on Love After the Fact: Lance and Alfor share a quiet moment.


End file.
